Communicating Through Email printable pdf download

Communicating Through Email

Most of your day to day communication

at the university, both ofﬁ cial and unofﬁ cial,

will be done by email. The simplicity of

using email technically should not

distract you from the care that needs

to be taken as you write.

The most important thing to remember

when you write an email is to consider its impact

on your reader. Think about why you are writing

the email and consider the tone and the way you express yourself. The more distant

the relationship is between yourself and your reader, the more formal the tone and

expression must be and the more carefully constructed your email will have to be. In

other words, you should observe email etiquette.

This chapter helps you to:

Know the basics

●

Be aware of your relationship with your reader

●

Without email etiquette, you may unintentionally give a poor impression of yourself

to the reader. If you do this, you may fail to achieve your objective in writing the email

and your reputation may be damaged. Conversely, a well written email will not only

succeed in getting your message across but also create a good impression of you.

10.1 Know the Basics

Tone and presentation are the two basic elements you need to pay attention to when

you write a formal email. Try to do the following:

Use your NUS email address when writing to people at NUS. Emails from

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idiosyncratic email addresses may get “spammed”.

Compose a subject line that is concise, relevant to the topic and will get the reader’s

●

attention, e.g. Apologies for absence from tutorial; Request for reference letter.

Communicating Through Email